Greetings inspired viewers,
welcome to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Christmas is a time to
remember the teachings
of Jesus Christ and
give thanks to God for
all the beautiful beings
that share the Earth with us.
A man who is
representative of the ideals
of this holy day
is Mr. John Robbins
of the USA.

John Robbins is
a true vegan hero
who turned down
inheriting his family’s
world famous ice cream
company Baskin-Robbins
because he did not wish
to promote factory farming
or the consumption
of animal products.

After graduating from
the renowned University
of California, Berkeley,
Mr. Robbins attended
Antioch College
where he earned
a Master’s Degree.
Thereafter, he became one
of the pioneering authors
to discuss the link
between our diet
and animal welfare,
environment
and human health.

His popular books include:
Diet for a New America;
The Awakened Heart:
Meditations
on Finding Harmony
in a Changing World;
The Food Revolution:
How Your Diet
Can Help Save Your Life
and Our World;
and Healthy at 100:
The Scientifically Proven
Secrets of
the World’s Healthiest and
Longest-Lived Peoples.

Mr. Robbins
also founded
EarthSave International,
a US-based
non-profit organization
that is dedicated to
informing the public about
the benefits of healthy
and life-sustaining
vegan food choices.

For his significant work
for the animals and planet,
Mr. Robbins
has been recognized
with numerous awards.
He was also
the esteemed recipient of
Supreme Master Ching Hai’s
Shining World
Leadership Award.
In his best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution,”
he recounts
a touching story of his time
spent with a pig farmer
and his family
in a chapter entitled
“The Pig Farmer.”

Mr. Robbins met the farmer
while doing undercover
investigative research
about the cruelties
of meat production
in Iowa, USA.
Unexpectedly,
he was invited to stay
for dinner with the family.
Over a three part series,
we will bring you a reading
in its entirety of
“The Pig Farmer.”

One day in Iowa I met
a particular gentleman -
and I use that term,
gentleman,
frankly, only because
I am trying to be polite,
for that is certainly not how
I saw him at the time.
He owned and ran
what he called a
“pork production facility.”
I, on the other hand,
would have called it
a pig Auschwitz.
The conditions were brutal.

The pigs were confined
in cages
that were barely larger
than their own bodies,
with the cages stacked
on top of each other
in tiers, three high.
The sides and
the bottoms of the cages
were steel slats,
so that excrement
from the animals in
the upper and middle tiers
dropped through the slats
on to the animals below.
The aforementioned owner
of this nightmare
weighed, I am sure,
at least 240 pounds
(108 kilograms),
but what was
even more impressive
about his appearance
was that he seemed to be
made out of concrete.

His movements
had all the fluidity
and grace of a brick wall.
What made him
even less appealing
was that his language
seemed to consist mainly
of grunts, many of which
sounded alike to me,
and none of which
were particularly pleasant
to hear.
Seeing how rigid he was
and sensing
the overall quality
of his presence,
I - rather brilliantly,
I thought - concluded
that his difficulties
had not arisen
merely because
he hadn’t had time,
that particular morning,
to finish his
entire daily yoga routine.

But I wasn’t about
to divulge my opinions
of him or his operation,
for I was undercover,
visiting slaughterhouses
and feedlots
to learn what I could about
modern meat production.
There were
no bumper stickers
on my car, and
my clothes and hairstyle
were carefully chosen
to give no indication
that I might have
philosophical leanings
other than those that were
common in the area.

I told the farmer
matter of factly that
I was a researcher writing
about animal agriculture,
and asked if he’d mind
speaking with me
for a few minutes so that
I might have the benefit
of his knowledge.
In response,
he grunted a few words
that I could not decipher,
but that I gathered meant
I could ask him questions
and he would
show me around.
I was at this point
not very happy
about the situation, and
this feeling did not improve
when we entered
one of the warehouses
that housed his pigs.

In fact,
my distress increased,
for I was immediately
struck by what I can
only call an overpowering
olfactory experience.
The place reeked
like you would not
believe of ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide,
and other noxious gases
that were the products
of the animals’ wastes.
These, unfortunately,
seemed to have been
piling up inside the building
for far too long a time.
As nauseating as the stench
was for me, I wondered
what it must be like
for the animals.
The cells that detect scent
are known
as ethmoidal cells.

Pigs, like dogs,
have nearly 200 times
the concentration
of these cells in their noses
as humans do.
In a natural setting,
they are able, while
rooting around in the dirt,
to detect the scent
of an edible root
through the earth itself.
Given any kind of a chance,
they will never
soil their own nests,
for they are actually
quite clean animals,
despite the reputation we
have unfairly given them.

But here they had
no contact with the earth,
and their noses
were beset by
the unceasing odor of
their own urine and feces
multiplied a thousand times
by the accumulated
wastes of the other pigs
unfortunate enough to be
caged in that warehouse.
I was in the building
only for a few minutes,
and the longer
I remained in there,
the more desperately
I wanted to leave.
But the pigs
were prisoners there,
barely able to
take a single step, forced
to endure this stench,
and almost completely
immobile, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week,
and with no time off,
I can assure you,
for holidays.

The man
who ran the place was -
I’ll give him this -
kind enough
to answer my questions,
which were mainly about
the drugs he used to
handle swine diseases
that are fairly common
in factory pigs today.
But my sentiments
about him and his farm
were not becoming
any warmer.
It didn’t help when,
in response to a
particularly loud squealing
from one of the pigs,
he delivered a sudden
and threatening kick
to the bars of its cage,
causing a loud “clang”
to reverberate
through the warehouse
and leading to screaming
from many of the pigs.

Because it was becoming
increasingly difficult
to hide my distress,
it crossed my mind that
I should tell him what
I thought of the conditions
in which he kept his pigs,
but then
I thought better of it.
This was a man,
it was obvious,
with whom there was
no point in arguing.

After maybe 15 minutes,
I’d had enough and
was preparing to leave,
and I felt sure
he was glad to be about
to be rid of me.
But then
something happened,
something that changed
my life, forever – and,
as it turns out, his too.
It began
when his wife came out
from the farmhouse
and cordially invited me
to stay for dinner.

After these messages,
we will continue with
“The Pig Farmer,”
a chapter from
John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.

Welcome back to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
We now continue
with our reading
of a chapter entitled
“The Pig Farmer,”
from John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”

The pig farmer grimaced
when his wife spoke, but
he dutifully turned to me
and announced,
“The wife would like you
to stay for dinner.”
He always called her
“the wife,” by the way,
which led me to deduce
that he was not, apparently,
on the leading edge
of feminist thought
in the country today.
I don’t know
whether you have
ever done something
without having a clue
why, and to this day
I couldn’t tell you what
prompted me to do it,
but I said,
“Yes, I’d be delighted.”

And stay for dinner I did,
though I didn’t eat the pork
they served.
The excuse I gave
was that my doctor
was worried about
my cholesterol.
I didn’t say
that I was a vegetarian,
nor that my cholesterol
was 125.
I was trying to be
a polite and appropriate
dinner guest.
I didn’t want to say anything
that might lead to
any kind of disagreement.

The couple
(and their two sons,
who were also at the table)
were, I could see,
being nice to me,
giving me dinner and all,
and it was gradually
becoming clear to me that,
along with
all the rest of it,
they could be, in their way,
somewhat decent people.
I asked myself,
if they were in my town,
traveling, and I had chanced
to meet them,
would I have invited them
to dinner?
Not likely, I knew,
not likely at all.
Yet here they were,
being as hospitable to me
as they could.
Yes, I had to admit it.

Much as I detested
how the pigs were treated,
this pig farmer wasn’t
actually the reincarnation
of Adolph Hitler.
At least not at the moment.
Of course,
I still knew that if we were
to scratch the surface
we’d no doubt
find ourselves
in great conflict,
and because
that was not a direction
in which I wanted to go,
as the meal went along
I sought to keep things
on an even
and constant keel.

Perhaps they sensed it too,
for among us,
we managed to see that
the conversation remained,
consistently and
resolutely, shallow.
We talked about
the weather, about
the Little League games
in which
their two sons played,
and then, of course,
about how the weather
might affect
the Little League games.
We were actually doing
rather well
at keeping the conversation
superficial and far from
any topic around which
conflict might occur.
Or so I thought.

But then suddenly,
out of nowhere, the man
pointed at me forcefully
with his finger,
and snarled in a voice
that I must say
truly frightened me,
“Sometimes I wish you
animal rights people
would just drop dead.”
How on Earth he knew
I had any affinity
to animal rights
I will never know -
I had painstakingly
avoided any mention
of any such thing -
but I do know that
my stomach tightened
immediately into a knot.

To make matters worse,
at that moment
his two sons
leapt from the table,
tore into the den,
slammed the door
behind them, and
turned the TV on loud,
presumably preparing
to drown out
what was to follow.
At the same instant,
his wife nervously picked up
some dishes and
scurried into the kitchen.
As I watched
the door close
behind her and heard
the water begin running,
I had a sinking sensation.
They had,
there was no mistaking it,
left me alone with him.
I was, to put it bluntly,
terrified.

Under the circumstances,
a wrong move now
could be disastrous.
Trying to center myself,
I tried to find some
semblance of inner calm
by watching my breath,
but this I could not do, and
for a very simple reason.
There wasn’t
any to watch.
“What are they saying
that’s so upsetting to you?”
I said finally,
pronouncing the words
carefully and distinctly,
trying not to show
my terror.
I was trying very hard
at that moment to
disassociate myself from
the animal rights movement,
a force in our society
of which he, evidently,
was not overly fond.

“They accuse me
of mistreating my stock,”
he growled.
“Why would they say
a thing like that?”
I answered,
knowing full well,
of course,
why they would,
but thinking mostly
about my own survival.
His reply, to my surprise,
while angry, was actually
quite articulate.

He told me precisely
what animal rights groups
were saying
about operations like his,
and exactly why they
were opposed to his way
of doing things.
Then, without pausing,
he launched into a tirade
about how he didn’t like
being called cruel, and
they didn’t know anything
about the business
he was in,
and why couldn’t they
mind their own business.

This concludes Part 1
of our reading of
“The Pig Farmer,”
a chapter from
John Robbins’s
best-selling book
“The Food Revolution.”
Please join us again
tomorrow
for the continuation
of this heartfelt story.
Books by John Robbins
are available at

Insightful viewers,
thank you for joining us
today on Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Coming up next is
Enlightening
Entertainment, following
Noteworthy News.
We wish you
a blessed Christmas Eve
and may we share peace
and joy with
all our animal friends.

Greetings jovial viewers,
welcome to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Christmas Day is a time
to celebrate
the life of Jesus Christ
who was the epitome
of compassion and love
for all beings.

A man
who is representative of
the ideals of Christmas
is Mr. John Robbins
of the USA.
John Robbins is
a true vegan hero
who turned down
inheriting his family’s
enormously profitable
ice cream
company Baskin-Robbins
because he did not wish
to promote factory farming
or the consumption
of animal products.

After graduating from
the renowned University
of California, Berkeley,
Mr. Robbins attended
Antioch College
where he earned
a Master’s Degree.
Thereafter, he became one
of the pioneering authors
to discuss the link
between our diet
and animal welfare,
environment
and human health.

His popular books include:
Diet for a New America;
The Awakened Heart:
Meditations
on Finding Harmony
in a Changing World;
The Food Revolution:
How Your Diet
Can Help Save Your Life
and Our World;
and Healthy at 100:
The Scientifically Proven
Secrets of
the World’s Healthiest and
Longest-Lived Peoples.

Mr. Robbins also founded
EarthSave International,
a US-based
non-profit organization
that is dedicated to
informing the public about
the benefits of healthy
and life-sustaining
vegan food choices.

For his significant work
for the animals and planet,
Mr. Robbins
has been recognized
with numerous awards.
He was also
the esteemed recipient of
Supreme Master Ching Hai’s
Shining World
Leadership Award.

In his best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution,”
he recounts
a touching story of his time
spent with a pig farmer
and his family
in a chapter entitled
“The Pig Farmer.”

Mr. Robbins met the farmer
while doing undercover
investigative research
about the cruelties
of meat production
in Iowa, USA.
Unexpectedly,
he was invited to stay
for dinner with the family.
Over a three part series,
we bring you a reading
in its entirety of
“The Pig Farmer.”

Yesterday
in Part 1 of our program,
we learned
how Mr. Robbins
visited a pig farm
posing as a researcher
on animal agriculture
and did not disclose
to the farmer
he was documenting
animal abuse
in the livestock industry.
Mr. Robbins discovered
the absolutely
horrific conditions
under which the pigs lived
and he felt the farmer
did not care at all
about the gentle beings.

During dinner with
the farmer and his family,
despite Mr. Robbins
avoiding the topic
of animal welfare,
the farmer somehow
guessed Mr. Robbins
was opposed to pig farms
and said,
“Sometimes I wish
you animal rights people
would just drop dead.”
We now
continue with the story.

As he spoke it,
the knot in my stomach
was relaxing, because
it was becoming clear,
and I was glad of it,
that he meant me no harm,
but just needed to vent.
Part of his frustration,
it seemed,
was that even though
he didn’t like doing
some of the things
he did to the animals -
cooping them up
in such small cages,
using so many drugs,
taking the babies away
from their mothers
so quickly after their births
- he didn’t see
that he had any choice.

He would be
at a disadvantage
and unable to
compete economically
if he didn’t do things
that way.
This is how it’s done today,
he told me,
and he had to do it too.
He didn’t like it,
but he liked even less
being blamed for doing
what he had to do
in order to feed his family.

As it happened,
I had just the week before
been at a much larger
hog operation,
where I learned
that it was part of
their business strategy to
try to put people like him
out of business
by going full-tilt
into the mass production
of assembly-line pigs,
so that small farmers
wouldn’t be able to keep up.
What I had heard
corroborated everything
he was saying.
Almost despite myself,
I began to grasp the
poignancy of this man’s
human predicament.

I was in his home
because he and his wife
had invited me to be there.
And looking around,
it was obvious that they
were having a hard time
making ends meet.
Things were threadbare.
This family was on the edge.
Raising pigs, apparently,
was the only way
the farmer knew
how to make a living,
so he did it even though,
as was becoming evident
the more we talked,
he didn’t like one bit
the direction
hog farming was going.

At times, as he spoke
about how much he hated
the modern factory methods
of pork production,
he reminded me of the
very animal rights people
who a few minutes before
he said he wished
would drop dead.
As the conversation
progressed,
I actually began to
develop some sense
of respect for this man
whom I had earlier judged
so harshly.
There was decency in him.
There was something
within him that meant well.

But as I began to sense a
spirit of goodness in him,
I could only wonder
all the more how
he could treat his pigs
the way he did.
Little did I know that
I was about to find out. . .
We are talking along,
when suddenly
he looks troubled.
He slumps over,
his head in his hands.
He looks broken,
and there is a sense
of something awful
having happened.
Has he had a heart attack?
A stroke?
I’m finding it
hard to breathe,
and hard to think clearly.

“What’s happening?” I ask.
It takes him awhile
to answer,
but finally he does.
I am relieved
that he is able to speak,
although what he says
hardly brings any clarity
to the situation.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says,
“and I don’t want to
talk about it.”
As he speaks,
he makes a motion
with his hand,
as if he were pushing
something away.

For the next
several minutes
we continue to converse,
but I’m quite uneasy.
Things seem incomplete
and confusing.
Something dark
has entered the room, and
I don’t know what it is
or how to deal with it.
Then, as we are speaking,
it happens again.
Once again
a look of despondency
comes over him.
Sitting there, I know
I’m in the presence
of something bleak
and oppressive.
I try to be present
with what’s happening,
but it’s not easy.
Again I’m finding it
hard to breathe.

Finally, he looks at me,
and I notice
his eyes are teary.
“You’re right,” he says.
I, of course,
always like to be told
that I am right,
but in this instance
I don’t have
the slightest idea
what he’s talking about.
He continues.
“No animal,” he says,
“should be treated like that.
Especially hogs.
Do you know that
they’re intelligent animals?
They’re even friendly,
if you treat ’em right.
But I don’t.”

There are tears
welling up in his eyes.
And he tells me that
he has just had a memory
come back of something
that happened
in his childhood, something
he hasn’t thought of
for many years.
It’s come back in stages,
he says.

After these messages,
we will have more from
“The Pig Farmer,”
a chapter from
John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.

Welcome back to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
We now continue
with our reading
of a chapter
from John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”
entitled “The Pig Farmer.”

He grew up, he tells me,
on a small farm
in rural Missouri,
the old-fashioned kind
where animals ran around,
with barnyards
and pastures, and
where they all had names.
I learn, too,
that he was an only child,
the son of a powerful father
who ran things
with an iron fist.
With no brothers or sisters,
he often felt lonely,
but found companionship
among the animals
on the farm,
particularly several dogs,
who were as friends to him.

And, he tells me, and this
I am quite surprised
to hear, he had a pet pig.
As he proceeds to tell me
about this pig,
it is as if he is becoming
a different person.
Before he had spoken
primarily in a monotone;
but now
his voice grows lively.
His body language,
which until this point
seemed to speak primarily
of long suffering,
now becomes animated.
There is something fresh
taking place.

In the summer,
he tells me, he would
sleep in the barn.
It was cooler there
than in the house, and
the pig would come over
and sleep alongside him,
asking fondly
to have her belly rubbed,
which he was glad to do.
There was a pond
on their property,
he goes on,
and he liked to swim in it
when the weather was hot,
but one of the dogs
would get excited
when he did,
and would ruin things.

The dog would
jump into the water and
swim up on top of him,
scratching him
with her paws
and making things
miserable for him.
He was about to give up
on swimming, but then,
as fate would have it,
the pig, of all people,
stepped in and saved the day.
Evidently
the pig could swim,
for she would plop
herself into the water,
swim out where the dog
was bothering the boy,
and insert herself
between them.

She’d stay between
the dog and the boy,
and keep the dog at bay.
She was,
as best I could make out,
functioning in
the situation something
like a lifeguard,
or in this case, perhaps
more of a life-pig.
I’m listening to
this hog farmer
tell me these stories
about his pet pig, and
I’m thoroughly enjoying
both myself and him,
and rather astounded at
how things are transpiring,
when once again,
it happens.

Once again
a look of defeat sweeps
across this man’s face,
and once again
I sense the presence
of something very sad.
Something in him,
I know, is struggling to
make its way toward life
through anguish and pain,
but I don’t know
what it is or how,
indeed, to help him.
“What happened
to your pig?” I ask.
He sighs, and it’s as though
the whole world’s pain
is contained in that sigh.

Then, slowly, he speaks.
“My father made me
butcher it.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“I ran away,
but I couldn’t hide.
They found me.”
“What happened?”
“My father
gave me a choice.”
“What was that?”
“He told me, ‘You either
slaughter that animal or
you’re no longer my son.’”
Some choice, I think,
feeling the weight
of how fathers have
so often trained their sons
not to care,
to be what they call
brave and strong,
but what so often
turns out to be callous
and closed-hearted.

“So I did it,” he says,
and now his tears begin
to flow, making their way
down his cheeks.
I am touched and humbled.
This man,
whom I had judged to be
without human feeling,
is weeping in front of me,
a stranger.
This man,
whom I had seen as callous
and even heartless,
is actually someone
who cares, and deeply.
How wrong,
how profoundly and
terribly wrong I had been.

In the minutes that follow,
it becomes clear to me
what has been happening.
The pig farmer has
remembered something
that was so painful,
that was such
a profound trauma,
that he had not
been able to cope with it
when it had happened.
Something
had shut down, then.
It was just
too much to bear.
Somewhere in his young,
formative psyche
he made a resolution
never to be that hurt again,
never to be
that vulnerable again.

And he built a wall
around the place where
the pain had occurred,
which was the place
where his love and
attachment to that pig
was located,
which was his heart.
And now here he was,
slaughtering pigs
for a living -
still, I imagined, seeking
his father’s approval.
God,
what we men will do,
I thought, to get
our fathers’ acceptance.
I had thought he was a cold
and closed human being,
but now I saw the truth.

That was Part 2
of our reading of
“The Pig Farmer,”
a chapter from
John Robbins’s
best-selling book
“The Food Revolution.”
What a heartwarming
revelation
Mr. Robbins was imparted
by the pig farmer about
his childhood memories
with his pig companion.

The same kindness and
compassion truly resides
in every human heart.
It is this same
spirit of love for
all beings that all past
and present Masters
remind us to nurture
to return to our dignified
and virtuous nature.

Please join us again
tomorrow
for the conclusion
of this heart-felt story.
in Part 3 of our program.
Books by John Robbins
are available at

Caring viewers,
thank you for joining us
today on Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Coming up next is
Enlightening
Entertainment, following
Noteworthy News.
Wishing you
a beautiful Christmas Day
and may all the beings
on the planet
rejoice in harmony.

A substantial number of
people in the Netherlands
are living greener,
healthier, happier lives
by riding bicycles
instead of driving cars.

Forty-seven percent
use the bike for going
to school or to work.
Forty percent use
the bike
for recreational purposes
and 13% use it
for shopping, etc.

Find out more about
the refreshing lifestyle
of the Dutch.
This Monday,
December 28
on Healthy Living.

Greetings special viewers
and welcome to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
As the start of a new decade
quickly approaches
and the opportunity for
a brighter future beckons,
our program today marks
this auspicious time of year
with an inspiring
and remarkable story
about humanity, caring,
and the capacity to change.
The story is based on
the real life experiences
of Mr. John Robbins
of the USA.

John Robbins is
a true vegan hero
who turned down
inheriting his family’s
enormously profitable
ice cream
company Baskin-Robbins
because he did not wish
to promote factory farming
or the consumption
of animal products.

After graduating from
the renowned University
of California, Berkeley,
Mr. Robbins attended
Antioch College
where he earned
a Master’s Degree.
Thereafter, he became one
of the pioneering authors
to discuss the link
between our diet
and animal welfare,
environment
and human health.

His popular books include:
Diet for a New America;
The Awakened Heart:
Meditations
on Finding Harmony
in a Changing World;
The Food Revolution:
How Your Diet
Can Help Save Your Life
and Our World;
and Healthy at 100:
The Scientifically Proven
Secrets of
the World’s Healthiest and
Longest-Lived Peoples.

Mr. Robbins
also founded
EarthSave International,
a US-based
non-profit organization
that is dedicated to
informing the public about
the benefits of healthy
and life-sustaining
vegan food choices.

For his significant work
for the animals and planet,
Mr. Robbins
has been recognized
with numerous awards.
He was also
the esteemed recipient of
Supreme Master Ching Hai’s
Shining World
Leadership Award.
In his best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution,”
he gives
a touching account of his time
spent with a pig farmer
and his family
in a chapter entitled
“The Pig Farmer.”

Mr. Robbins met the farmer
while doing undercover
investigative research
about the cruelties
of meat production
in Iowa, USA.
Unexpectedly,
he was invited to stay
for dinner with the family.
In this final installment
of our three part series,
we bring you a reading
of the conclusion of
“The Pig Farmer.”

Yesterday in Part 2
of our program
we learned that the farmer
opened himself up
to Mr. Robbins
and confessed he was
suffering tremendously
because he recognized
it was wrong
to abuse and kill pigs.
In fact as a young boy
he had a pet pig
whom he loved dearly.
The farmer felt trapped
as he knew of
no other profession and
needed to earn money
to care for his family.
We now
continue with the story.

His rigidity was not a
result of a lack of feeling,
as I had thought it was,
but quite the opposite: it was
a sign of how sensitive
he was underneath.
For if he had not been
so sensitive, he would not
have been that hurt,
and he would not
have needed to put up
so massive a wall.
The tension in his body
that was so apparent to me
upon first meeting him,
the body armor
that he carried, bespoke
how hurt he had been,
and how much capacity
for feeling he carried still,
beneath it all.

I had judged him,
and done so,
to be honest, mercilessly.
But
for the rest of the evening
I sat with him, humbled,
and grateful for whatever
it was in him that
had been strong enough
to force this long-buried
and deeply painful memory
to the surface.
And glad, too, that
I had not stayed stuck
in my judgments of him,
for if I had, I would not
have provided
an environment in which
his remembering
could have occurred.

We talked that night, for
hours, about many things.
I was, after all
that had happened,
concerned for him.
The gap
between his feelings
and his lifestyle
seemed so tragically vast.
What could he do?
This was all he knew.
He did not have
a high school diploma.
He was only
partially literate.
Who would hire him if he
tried to do something else?
Who would invest in him
and train him, at his age?

When finally,
I left that evening,
these questions were
very much on my mind, and
I had no answers to them.
Somewhat flippantly,
I tried to joke about it.
“Maybe,” I said,
“you’ll grow broccoli
or something.”
He stared at me, clearly
not comprehending what
I might be talking about.
It occurred to me, briefly,
that he might possibly
not know what broccoli was.

We parted that night
as friends, and though we
rarely see each other now,
we have remained friends
as the years have passed.
I carry him in my heart
and think of him,
in fact, as a hero.
Because,
as you will soon see,
impressed as I was
by the courage
it had taken for him to allow
such painful memories
to come to the surface,
I had not yet seen
the extent of his bravery.

When I wrote
Diet for a New America,
I quoted him
and summarized
what he had told me,
but I was quite brief and
did not mention his name.
I thought that,
living as he did
among other pig farmers
in Iowa, it would not be
to his benefit
to be associated with me.
When the book came out,
I sent him a copy,
saying I hoped
he was comfortable with
how I wrote of
the evening we had shared,
and directing him
to the pages
on which my discussion
of our time together
was to be found.

After these messages,
we will have more from
“The Pig Farmer,”
a chapter from
John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.

Welcome back to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
We now continue
with our reading
of a chapter
from John Robbins’s
best-selling book,
“The Food Revolution.”
entitled The Pig Farmer.

Several weeks later,
I received a letter from him.
“Dear Mr. Robbins,”
it began.
“Thank you for the book.
When I saw it,
I got a migraine headache.”
Now as an author, you do
want to have an impact
on your readers.
This, however, was not
what I had had in mind.
He went on, though, to
explain that the headaches
had gotten so bad that,
as he put it, “the wife”
had suggested to him
he should perhaps
read the book.
She thought there might be
some kind of connection
between the headaches
and the book.

He told me that this
hadn’t made much sense
to him, but he had done it
because
“the wife” was often right
about these things.
“You write good,”
he told me,
and I can tell you
that his three words of his
meant more to me than
when the New York Times
praised the book profusely.
He then went on to say
that reading the book
was very hard for him,
because the light it shone
on what he was doing
made it clear to him that
it was wrong to continue.

The headaches, meanwhile,
had been getting worse,
until, he told me,
that very morning, when
he had finished the book,
having stayed up
all night reading,
he went into the bathroom,
and looked into the mirror.
“I decided, right then,”
he said, “that I would
sell my herd and
get out of this business.
I don’t know
what I will do, though.
Maybe I will, like you said,
grow broccoli.”

As it happened, he did
sell his operation in Iowa
and move back
to Missouri, where
he bought a small farm.
And there he is today,
running something
of a model farm.
He grows vegetables
organically - including,
I am sure, broccoli –
that he sells at
a local farmer’s market.
He’s got pigs, all right,
but only about 10, and
he doesn’t cage them,
nor does he kill them.
Instead, he’s got a contract
with local schools;
they bring kids out in buses
on field trips to his farm,
for his “Pet-a-pig” program.

He shows them
how intelligent pigs are
and how friendly
they can be
if you treat them right,
which he now does.
He’s arranged it so the kids,
each one of them,
gets a chance
to give a pig a belly rub.
He’s become nearly
a vegetarian himself,
has lost most of
his excess weight,
and his health has
improved substantially.
And, thank goodness,
he’s actually doing
better financially
than he was before.

Do you see
why I carry this man
with me in my heart?
Do you see why
he is such a hero to me?
He dared to leap,
to risk everything, to leave
what was killing his spirit
even though he didn’t know
what was next.
He left behind a way of life
that he knew was wrong,
and he found one
that he knows is right.
When I look at
many of the things
happening in our world,
I sometimes fear
we won’t make it.

But when I remember
this man and
the power of his spirit,
and when I remember
that there are many others
whose hearts beat to the
same quickening pulse,
I think we will.
I can get tricked
into thinking
there aren’t enough of us
to turn the tide,
but then I remember
how wrong I was
about the pig farmer
when I first met him, and
I realize that there are
heroes afoot everywhere.
Only I can’t recognize them
because I think
they are supposed to look
or act a certain way.
How blinded I can be
by my own beliefs.

The man is
one of my heroes
because he reminds me
that we can
depart from the cages
we build for ourselves
and for each other,
and become something
much better.
He is one of my heroes
because he reminds me
of what I hope someday
to become.
When I first met him,
I would not have thought
it possible that I would
ever say the things
I am saying here.
But this only goes to show
how amazing life can be,
and how you never really
know what to expect.

The pig farmer has become,
for me, a reminder
never to underestimate
the power
of the human heart.
I consider myself privileged
to have spent that day
with him, and grateful
that I was allowed
to be a catalyst for
the unfolding of his spirit.
I know my presence
served him in some way,
but I also know,
and know full well,
that I received
far more than I gave.

To me, this is grace –
to have the veils
lifted from our eyes
so that we can recognize
and serve the goodness
in each other.
Others may wish
for great riches
or for ecstatic journeys
to mystical planes,
but to me, this is
the magic of human life.

We deeply thank
John Robbins for writing
“The Food Revolution”
and for sharing the story
of the pig farmer
with all of us.
Mr. Robbins’s books
and the initiatives
of his organization
EarthSave International
have brought true blessings
upon our world
as they have convinced
many people to follow
the loving and healthy
vegan diet thus helping
to save countless lives
of our animals friends.

We wish him the very best
in his continued
benevolent mission
to uplift our world
by spreading the message
of veganism.
Our sincere appreciation
also goes to the pig farmer
who courageously made
the noble switch to
organic vegetable farming
and regained his freedom
of conscience and
compassionate nature.
May his dignified and
heroic action serve as
a shining example for all.

For more information
on John Robbins,
please visit
Books by John Robbins
are available
at the same website.

Our appreciation
wonderful viewers
for joining us on
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Next is Enlightening
Entertainment, following
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May our planet
soon be one where
only fruits and vegetables
are raised on farms,
all animals lives are
respected and cherished,
and we hold hands in peace.